see the better. The little girl, just aroused from sleep and brought
from her bed in her night-gown, sat on a chair close to the table, and
behind her stood the earnest, sombre figure of the Grand Cophta. Around
the table stood the prisoners, these duchesses and marquises, these
ladies of the court of Versailles who had preserved their aristocratic
manners in the prison, and were even here so strictly observant of
etiquette, that those of them who had enjoyed the honor of the
_tabouret_ in the Tuileries, were here accorded the same precedence, and
all possible consideration shown them.

On the other side of the table, in breathless suspense, her large, dark
eyes fastened on the child with a touching expression, stood the unhappy
Josephine, and, at some distance behind the ladies, the jailer with
his wife.

Now the Grand Cophta laid both hands on the child's head and cried in a
loud voice, "Open your eyes and look!"

The child turned pale and shuddered as it fixed its gaze on the
decanter.

"What do you see?" asked the Grand Cophta, "I want you to look into the
prison of General Beauharnais. What do you see?"

"I see a little room," said the child with vivacity. "On a cot lies a
young man who sleeps; at his side stands another man, writing on a sheet
of paper that lies on a large book."

"Can you read?"